]]>London-based German designer Jule Waibel has launched a collection of seats made from 100 per cent wool felt that has been three-dimensionally folded under steam to create flexible pleats (+ slideshow).

Named Cones, the pouf-like seats resemble squat pinecones and come in a range of autumnal colours.

The felt is pleated between two layers of folded paper, used as a mould, and the shape is set using hot steam.

"It's an old craft, which was once used to make pleated skirts," Waibel told Dezeen. "There are not many factories left. The craft is dying out."

Due to the structure of the folds, the seats flex under the weight of the sitter to accommodate a range of sitting positions.

"I was inspired by cones of pine trees," said Waibel. "They have a similar detailed, folded, repeated pattern which changes according external impacts such as nature, heat and humidity."

"They can change their shape and transform depending on influences of the nature. They are flexible but solid, just like my seats, except the external influence for Cones is not nature but the human body."

"I hope people can see the beauty in the geometry, transformation and play of the seats, and that they feel the aesthetics and comfort of the unfolded cones," she added.

"The Cornershop grew out of an idea to create an art installation that would be overwhelming to people visiting," Sparrow told Dezeen.

She spent eight months creating the items, cutting the pieces of felt and stitching them into items typically found in a British corner shop.

"There are canned goods, alcohol, toiletries, frozen foods, iced lollies and ice creams, chewing gum, confectionery, tobacco products and newspapers and magazines," said Sparrow, who posted a full inventory on her blog. "Almost anything you can think of, really."

Branding on the products is recreated using stitching, fabric paint or bubble paint – which expands when heated to create raised details.

Lycra and clear plastic are used to complete the effect, but Sparrow says that over 90 per cent of the installation is felt.

"I chose felt because it's a naive, almost childlike material that everyone comes into contact with at a young age when first they start to sew," she explained. "It's a very forgiving fabric that's approachable and is available in a huge range of colours."

"It was just the right material to give the pieces saturation, stroke-ability and a uniform appearance," she added.

The products are installed in an abandoned corner shop at 19 Wellington Row, which closed like many similar enterprises around the UK as shoppers took their business to larger supermarkets.

"[The corner shop] is something that's disappearing with the growth of supermarkets, and the loss of the corner shop has adversely impacted our high streets and communities," said Sparrow. "I hoped that this project would remind people just how much the corner shop cemented life in local communities."

The project, which was partially funded on Kickstarter, also includes sewing workshops for children and people with neurological disabilities.

"The Cornershop is a tactile project and I felt it was important to create some art for communities that normally find themselves excluded from mainstream art," Sparrow said.

]]>http://www.dezeen.com/2014/08/06/the-felt-cornershop-lucy-sparrow-east-london/feed/2Reed Krakoff creates furniture made from felt for Established & Sonshttp://www.dezeen.com/2014/04/28/felt-furniture-reed-delphine-krakoff-established-sons/
http://www.dezeen.com/2014/04/28/felt-furniture-reed-delphine-krakoff-established-sons/#commentsMon, 28 Apr 2014 15:01:04 +0000http://admin.dezeen.com/?p=447790Milan 2014: designers Reed and Delphine Krakoff have created a series of "archetypical" seats in grey felt for British brand Established & Sons. The Felt Series was created for Established & Sons to translate a perceived trend for the matted wool material from the fashion industry into furniture design, and was shown at the brand's […]

The Felt Series was created for Established & Sons to translate a perceived trend for the matted wool material from the fashion industry into furniture design, and was shown at the brand's exhibition at Istituto dei Ciechi in Milan earlier this month.

"These archetypical furniture forms reinvented in soft felt, have beautifully considered stitch detailing and will follow fashion trend through the seasonal evolution of colour pairings," said a statement from Established & Sons.

American fashion designer Reed Krakoff is former executive creative director for American leather goods company Coach and currently runs his own label, while his French wife Delphine runs an interior design company.

The pieces are based on an original design for a chair the duo created for the first boutiques for Krakoff's eponymous fashion brand in 2010. "Designing a chair isn't that much different from designing a fashion collection. It's still just about telling a story through shape, colour, and form," Krakoff told American Vogue.

All the pieces in the collection are assembled from flat sections of felt, joined with exaggerated, exposed seams and assembled around wooden frames.

The set includes a four-legged chair with a straight back positioned at a right angle to a square seat. A backless version of the chair creates a simple stool and an elongated seat forms a bench.

These minimal shapes were used to highlight the reinvention through material rather than form.

]]>http://www.dezeen.com/2014/04/28/felt-furniture-reed-delphine-krakoff-established-sons/feed/7Kulle daybed by Stefanie Schissler features a bobbly surfacehttp://www.dezeen.com/2014/01/27/kulle-by-stefanie-schissler/
http://www.dezeen.com/2014/01/27/kulle-by-stefanie-schissler/#commentsMon, 27 Jan 2014 07:01:46 +0000http://admin.dezeen.com/?p=407092Cologne 2014: this daybed by young designer Stefanie Schissler is intentionally lumpy to encourage users to snuggle into it. The Kulle daybed by Stefanie Schissler has an undulating surface caused by the different sized pieces of upholstery foam concealed beneath its stretchy boiled-wool surface. The German designer wanted to create a piece of furniture for […]

]]>Cologne 2014: this daybed by young designer Stefanie Schissler is intentionally lumpy to encourage users to snuggle into it.

The Kulle daybed by Stefanie Schissler has an undulating surface caused by the different sized pieces of upholstery foam concealed beneath its stretchy boiled-wool surface.

The German designer wanted to create a piece of furniture for relaxation that invites the user to lay down through its appearance.

"The look is something new, which is arising curiosity in people," Schissler told Dezeen. "It is designed to arise the urge to touch and feel it."

The small cubes of leftover foam used have different densities and heights so the squashiness varies across the surface. "Every bobble feels different," Schissler explained. "You can feel them but in a very gentle and pleasant way. A lot of people describe it as a massage for the body."

She added that the piece is not really meant for sitting on but as a landscape for relaxation. "The bobbles at the back are slightly higher so that you can lean your head on them to read a book, but in general the daybed is a piece that is not made to sit on, but to really lie in it, feel it and simply relax."

]]>http://www.dezeen.com/2014/01/27/kulle-by-stefanie-schissler/feed/0Viktor & Rolf's first flagship boutique is covered with grey felthttp://www.dezeen.com/2013/12/16/viktor-rolf-first-flagship-boutique-by-architecture-associes-is-covered-with-grey-felt/
http://www.dezeen.com/2013/12/16/viktor-rolf-first-flagship-boutique-by-architecture-associes-is-covered-with-grey-felt/#commentsMon, 16 Dec 2013 17:49:41 +0000http://admin.dezeen.com/?p=398826The interior of Dutch fashion house Viktor & Rolf's first flagship store in Paris has been covered in grey felt by French studio Architecture & Associés. Architecture & Associés was asked to create an unobtrusive design for the duo's recently opened store on Rue Saint-Honoré, close to Paris' famous shopping square Place Vendôme. "We said […]

]]>The interior of Dutch fashion house Viktor & Rolf's first flagship store in Paris has been covered in grey felt by French studio Architecture & Associés.

Architecture & Associés was asked to create an unobtrusive design for the duo's recently opened store on Rue Saint-Honoré, close to Paris' famous shopping square Place Vendôme.

"We said we would like a store that's invisible or a store that's hardly there because often we find store designs very intrusive and just too much," Viktor & Rolf co-founder Viktor Horsting told Dezeen.

"We wanted to create an environment where the clothes would really stand out," said Horsting. "Grey is a very good colour as a backdrop because it's very neutral. It's a total surreal experience because you're in an environment that's entirely made out of fabric, but at the same time it's something architectural. We like that surrealism."

The store houses men and women's ready-to-wear clothing, accessories such as bags and shoes, plus the brand's line of fragrances.

Neoclassical elements such as arched niches along the walls and a colonnade of arches running over the staircase create shadows to break up the monochrome.

Shelves for displaying products sit in the niches, some of which are illuminated with white light from behind similar to the ceiling panels.

The felt also muffles the sounds of browsing shoppers in an attempt to make the large 650-square-metre store feel more intimate.

"We wanted to emphasise the personal experience of shopping," Horsting said. "I have to say that it was a little bit of a guess. Of course we thought that the felt would change certain acoustics of the space but we couldn't really imagine it, so when we were there over the weekend we were glad to hear that the effect was as we had hoped."

"You're really by yourself even though it's a big space, and even though the architecture is rigorous and graphic, it's not imposing or too grand," he continued. "It's really an intimate place. It's quite beautiful."

The store opened last week to coincide with Viktor & Rolf's twentieth anniversary, which was also marked by the house's return to haute couture in July. The designers will show their Spring 2014 collection in January next year.

Read on for more information from the team behind the design:

The store will be on Rue Saint-Honoré, just a stone's throw from the Place Vendôme.

The miscellanea of the Viktor & Rolf world will all be available at the boutique: men and women's ready-to-wear, shoes, the iconic "Bombette" line of bags and leather goods, glasses, accessories and of course, the line of fragrances.

Driven by a taste for the paradoxical, the designers desired an eternal environment for their ever-changing collections, in their own words: "a striking world where every and anybody's desires or fantasies can be borne upon what we do".

The innovative design, conceived by Pierre Beucler and Jean-Christophe Poggioli of Architecture & Associés, combines the palatial grandeur of Renaissance Italy with the classicism of the French tradition for a startlingly avant-garde universe.

The spirit of unorthodox innovation that has always driven Viktor & Rolf, whose work has often been characterised by its subtle exploration of scale and shadow, inspired the architects towards a spectral architecture crafted entirely of grey felt. This single-material strategy makes for a phantasmagorical space of shifting apparitions where the uniform surface of the walls, floors and furniture, as a kind of all-enveloping interior skin, creates the effect of complete unity.